


Chance Music

by Miz_Bluebird



Category: Tron: Betrayal
Genre: Alcohol, M/M, corruption of The Youth, squint for dubcon, that newfangled digital jazz man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-23 02:00:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10709796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miz_Bluebird/pseuds/Miz_Bluebird
Summary: ...Maybe you don't want senpai to notice you.





	Chance Music

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sue on Plurk](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Sue+on+Plurk).



They're brand new, helmed twins in pearlescent entertainment white, and they know their way around a bassline already. Clu can feel the chorus in his back teeth.

Zuse was only too glad to run interference and get him something, parsing out _sure, fine_ to good results. He knows his trade. He's grown into his function, blossomed into the perfect host. 

He's got everybody welcoming the new guys with their hands, with their feet, jumping in place like idiots. No one's in sequence. Not even close, giddy with energy and novelty and contact.

It aches less on the other end of the _blue_. Clu downs the rest of it. There's another queued in his hand before he thinks to cancel it. Two drinks, three, and the air is warm with the feedback. Music is pretty good, man. This is all right.

He's half down off the stool, turning, when he catches a data pad square in the face. It bounces, kicked under seating at the far side of the club, milled behind furniture by eager uncaring feet.

"Oh! Oh oh oh." Sharp, breathless, a blur of limbs and syllables. Kid's in Ops, deep throbbing navy blue, all hopeless lanky scrambling after his lost statistics. "I'm so sorry, I--oh, no, I didn't--are you all right? Oh no." 

"They'll trample you," is the first thing Clu says, nasal and inane, and thanks to the _blue_ it's even funny. It stings to chuckle. "We'll get it back when they're done. Relax."

"Sir!" He's Ops, all right--clothes and bearing rigid with underlying support structure, bald as the day he was rendered--and he looks ready to shake right out of his skin. "I'm so sorry. Sorry, Sir."

Nobody's ever called him that before. Nobody's ever bowed their head to him before, and it's. It's weird. It prickles sharp against the mains, intense and different.

"Don't do that!" Maybe Clu grabs a little hard, because Ops squeaks at him and clutches back. 

It loops up his arm, clear through the jacket, static washing hidden connections in _dismay awe_ fear _fascination_ and a traitor blurt of _interest_ Clu is sure would be for Flynn, if Flynn were ever here. 

"I didn't mean to--" Ops is so distressed that he's not letting go, that instead he keeps his grip and starts fidgeting. 

Clu pulls air through his teeth and diligently thinks about hexagonal figurate numbers, because there's no way that was meant for him. 

"Just--just chill out, okay?" He smiles for want of anything more reliable to do with his features. "Sit with me. We'll get it back."

"But my report!" This would be so much easier if Ops would just not touch, but he doesn't seem to realize he's doing it. Or that he's all but broadcasting terrified admiration.

Clu can't hear himself think. Not that he could before. So he reaches, snakes both arms tight around Ops in a flurry of intent and plants him, vertical, on the next nearest stool with a firm shove.

The kid tilts at him a little, strobing bright, but doesn't fall over or crash. Good. Good enough. 

" _Stay_." Firmly. "I will sign off on it personally, but you've--" he does not think about the long lean line of the kid's throat, doesn't think about the way he's being looked at, "you've gotta sit still."

Clu's tab isn't infinite, but it's close. It's no real draw against it to pull two more drinks, identical and such verdant _green_ they'd draw a ring of raised eyebrows, if anyone bothered to look behind them.

"But, Sir, I don't--"

"Clu." Terse, tight in his throat; he coughs, slakes it with _green_. "Yes, you do."

"But--"

" _All_ of it, fast as you can." 

"Sir." He squints at it like he expects it to burn him, swallowing reflexively. "Clu."

Clu blinks back at him. "You got a designation?" 

Ops is pretty efficient; most of them don't have names, just addresses. What is this one doing so far from his series? Other than staring.

"Jarvis, Sir." Kid takes an experimental mouthful--and chokes instantly, making some truly amazing faces as he kicks a little, feet rattling the chair rail, trying to figure out what to _do_ with the excess power. "I--! Oh." 

"Told you," with a snort, shaking his head, "you've gotta drink it all at once."

So he does, part suggestion and part singular focus--it goes straight down in one long pull, no pause, and Jarvis flushes downright _cyan_ with the difference, bright and hot.

"That--" He blinks, wide dark eyes popped white on all sides. "That _is_ better."

Clu laughs, and that's a first, in this place. "Told you so."

His own drink is emerald, traffic lights at midnight, all systems go.

The music crescendoes. The crowd is walking _backwards_ , still not in unison, falling all over each other.

Jarvis is watching him, furtive but steady, and finally, blessedly quiet. Running his own analyses, taking it all in.

Clu feels it kick in on the exhale, a differential so sharp it flickers through the house lights, flooding halogen white so intense it burns.

It's an aftereffect, it won't last, but right now the room itself bends toward him--the counter catches under his fingers and quick, sharp, the music boils over in sudden new arpeggios, C minor down along the bottom of the scale. People abruptly seem to realize they have both left and right feet, and that timing exists.

Zuse can't refuse him, but there are reasons the perfect host never exactly invites him in.

Jarvis considers that, turns it over.

"How did you--" the inquiry is steady, washed with inherited certainty, easy and slow, "Ah! Residual permission transfer from base clearance, perhaps?"

Ops gets it. The kid gets _him_ , just like that, and if Jarvis is a little handsy, well.

"Exactly," with a rumble of approval.

Clu will sign his report. That gives them at least the next quarter-mili to sort it out.

They might as well get started.

He sets down the empty, closes the stemware file. "Hey, man, do you dance?"


End file.
